Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking (32 page)

This contrast between language A, which has a blob where language B has none, is what we mean by the phrase “the genius of language A”; it is the special ability of language A to get at certain concepts that no other language gets at as easily — and complementarily, it is also the set of weaknesses that language A has in expressing certain things that, in some other languages, are as easy as falling off a log. Perhaps a language’s unique set of frailties doesn’t merit the positive-sounding word “genius”. The phrase “lexical coverage” might be a bit more accurate, but in its staid neutrality it fails to suggest the special flavor of the idiosyncratic subtleties and the evolutionary potential of each different language.

Out near its fringes, each language has its own unique set of little blobs that fill up certain small zones of conceptual space that are covered by no other language. When Language A features a blob that elegantly fits into an area that was previously
uninhabited, then speakers of Language B may want to follow suit and fill in the same zone, either by coming up with a brand-new phrase or by literally borrowing Language A’s appealing phrase (oftentimes, however, unintentionally changing the boundaries of applicability of the phrase, so that in Language B it no longer means exactly what it did in Language A).

Thus we English speakers occasionally have
déjà vu
experiences that give us a
frisson
, we try to avoid
faux pas
(they make us feel so
gauche
), we indulge in
hors d’œuvres, soupe du jour
, apple pie
à la mode
, and even
sorbet
, and once in a while we wear
décolletés
(as long as they’re not too
risqué
), we sometimes take in
avant-garde
films, read an article about
coups d’état
caused by
fin-de-siècle
decadence while
en route
to a secret
rendezvous
whose
raison d’être
is to engage in a
tête-à-tête
, enjoy ogling a
femme fatale
who’s
petite
but very
chic
and all decked out in
haute couture
duds, we always seek the
mot juste par excellence
, have an
idée fixe
of one day having
carte blanche
to hobnob with the
crème de la crème
, and of course if we are
nouveaux riches
, we seek out
objets d’art
(not likely to be made of
papier mâché)
to decorate our
pied-à-terre
while indulging ourselves in
dernier cri
technology.
Ooh la la!

The French, meanwhile, leave their
break
(station wagon) in the
parking
(the parking lot), in order to go play
foot
and
flipper
(soccer and pinball), listen to
jazz
and
rock
on their
hi-fi
, place their
rosbif
and
pop-corn
in their
caddie
(shopping cart), and later that day they go to their
dressing
(clothes closet) in order to find a
smoking
, a
pull
, and a pair of
baskets
(a tuxedo, a sweater, and tennis shoes) to wear to a
rallye
(a high-society
surprise-party
), and last but not least, they read
magazines
about
le marketing
in order to be
smart
and they use
shampooing
in order to have a
look
that is very
sexy
in order to get a
job
very
cool
.

As is clear, some of these words have retained their original meanings, while others have somewhat drifted from their moorings. Indeed, we should keep in mind that these terms have been imported precisely in order to fill a gap in the receiving language. The new word fills the lacuna, even if the shape that it takes on may not exactly match the shape covered by the original blob in the source language. For instance, when speaking of “a hamburger”, English speakers do not necessarily envision the ground beef as being found inside a bun (though of course it is a strong possibility), whereas for French speakers, the bun is an integral and necessary part of the concept (indeed, the bun even has to be circular!). What was missing in the French language was a phrase to denote ground beef between slices of bread, rather than a phrase to denote that kind of meat alone, since the expression “steak haché” (which already had an English flavor to it) was already available.

Moreover, unless a borrowed word or phrase has been so deeply integrated that its origin has been totally forgotten, it will generally exude a tone that conjures up something of the other culture, or at least a stereotyped vision of the other culture, and in itself that already means that a bit of drift has taken place. For instance, in English, the term “pied-à-terre” has a somewhat fancy or rich connotation to it, while in French that need not be part of the image at all.

Amusingly, some borrowings are the result of a series of cross-Channel bounces, where, for instance, old French becomes English and then bounces back home to become new French, or vice versa. An example is provided by the French word
“budget”, which of course is a wholesale import from English, but the last laugh is on the anglophones, for it was they who, many centuries ago, acquired the word “budget” by importing (and distorting) the French word “bougette”, meaning a small purse worn on one’s belt. Another example with a similar story is the French word “étiquette” (meaning “label”) which, in crossing the Channel, lost its first syllable and thus became “ticket”, after which, decked out in its new guise and sporting a new meaning, it returned home, where it became a close cousin and occasional rival of the word “billet”. Interestingly enough, there are dozens of such ricochet stories.

The upshot of such cross-cultural, interlingual borrowing processes is to enlarge both “galaxies” in conceptual space, adding blobs at various spots on their fringes, pushing them ever further outwards.

There are cases where one language pleasingly fills in some small zone, yet for some reason others do not follow suit. In such cases, it can be argued, speakers of that language benefit from the extra concept thus provided for free by their language. Let’s take an example from American culture. There is an ancient disreputable business practice related to the timeless con game played with three shells on a table, in which an unsuspecting customer is lured by an attractive offer but then is told that that particular item is unfortunately out of stock or slightly outmoded, or that for some reason they are not eligible to buy it; then, in its place, another item, far more expensive, is aggressively pushed on the customer.

Variations on this theme are legion. For instance, a family seeking to buy a car is shown a model that they gush over. The wily dealer, quickly picking up on their strong interest, initially tells them that their down payment will be just $2,000. Delighted, the family eagerly says they want to buy, but then, when it comes to signing the contract, they are told that for some technical reason that they don’t fully understand, the amount will “unfortunately” have to be “just a little bit higher” — and sooner than they can count to three, it has slid from $2,000 all the way up to $6,000.

People who rent cars will also be familiar with very tempting offers that give the impression that one can rent a car for a nominal sum, but when one shows up at the agency, one invariably discovers that the conditions for such a rate are very restrictive, and so in the end one winds up paying at least twice the rate quoted in the ad.

Such disreputable techniques, which often work like a charm, bear the evocative name, as our readers surely know, of “bait-and-switch”. The category is broader than might be supposed. For instance, here is a case that in some ways is the flip side of the coin, yet it too counts as an excellent member. During a financial slump, an elegant old house has been on the market for some months with no takers, but one day, buyer A shows up and offers $1,000,000 for it. Shortly thereafter, by coincidence, Buyer B arrives and ups the ante to $1,050,000. The seller is ready to let B have it for the higher offer, but then along comes buyer C, who raises the stakes all the way to $1,200,000. On hearing this, both A and B immediately drop out of the bidding and
out of sight, angry to have been displaced after weeks of negotiation. And now, buyer C, having gotten rid of the competition, is much freer to maneuver than before. After having some inspections made, C suddenly declares, “Oh, what a shame — I can’t stick to my previous offer, because the inspectors found some serious problems; nonetheless, I’m willing to offer $900,000.” At this point, the seller has lost much precious time and is growing desperate, so the house winds up going to buyer C, but for far less than it is actually worth. This is a classic bait-and-switch maneuver, despite the fact that this time the actor doing the bait-and-switch was not the seller but a buyer.

The fact that this term exists in English and is daily used by thousands of people means that the idea in great generality (for instance, including the “flipped” case we just gave) is readily accessible and immediately understandable. At first, the existence of this term may not seem of much consequence, since anyone can understand the idea if told a couple of stories of this sort, but in fact the term’s existence can help the concept to spread quickly and it also lends a sense of legitimacy to the concept (approaching a sense of total objectivity), since so many people know it. For instance, the existence of the concept and its standard name may well catalyze the writing of laws that seek to squelch the many-headed hydra of this phenomenon. By contrast, a culture in which there is no standard name for this disreputable technique will be less likely to enact laws that prevent it, because the notion is not “in the air”; it’s not a recognized regularity in the world that most people are explicitly aware of, even in its more common forms, let alone in its more exotic variants.

Thus we see a genuine power that comes along with providing a concept with a name: it allows speakers to spread knowledge of it around easily and quickly, and that in turn allows it to enter public discourse on many levels, and to exert influences both on individuals and on society as a whole. The effect whereby the existence of a term in a given language allows its speakers certain advantages is known as the
Sapir–Whorf effect
, and although the idea has occasionally been advanced in extreme forms that have lent it a bad name, the fundamental premise is perfectly clear and there can be no denying that it exists.

These considerations about thinking and concepts lead one naturally to wonder whether human intelligence might not reside, at least in part, in the number of concepts one has and the intricacy of the network that weaves them together. After all, we human beings are formed by the culture in which we grow up, which hands us vast numbers of conceptual tools. Does it then follow that our level of intelligence is determined by the repertoire of concepts that we inherit from our culture?

Indeed, what is the nature of the elusive quality called “intelligence”? Countless theories have been proposed. A search through dictionaries, encyclopedias, textbooks, and the Web will yield dozens of definitions rather quickly, many of them overlapping considerably, although occasionally one will turn up that has very little overlap with the others. The most frequently occurring themes are (in no particular order):

•
the ability to acquire and use knowledge;

• the ability to reason;

• the ability to solve problems;

• the ability to plan;

• the ability to achieve goals;

• the ability to remember important information;

• the ability to adapt to new situations;

• the ability to understand complex ideas;

• the ability to think abstractly;

• the ability to learn and apply skills;

• the ability to profit from experience;

• the ability to perceive and recognize;

• the ability to create products of value;

• the ability to attain what one seeks;

• the ability to think rationally;

• the ability to improve.

Among the many characterizations of intelligence that we ourselves have run into, although each one undeniably touches on some qualities of the phenomenon, none quite strikes the bull’s-eye. They all hover near it, but they all fail to pinpoint intelligence’s core; they don’t get to the heart of the matter, let alone hit the nail on the head. Never quite managing to put their finger on its essence, they merely skirt the crux, flirt with the nub, and miss the gist, curiously unable to zero in on the kernel of the phenomenon of intelligence.

Readers may well be anticipating what our own conception of intelligence is, but before we state it explicitly, we thought it would be of interest to quote here a provocative sentence that we uncovered about, of all things, military strategists, since the author of this sentence, in describing the quality that defines a great military leader, came up with a phrase that is very similar to the words that we would use to characterize intelligence:

Oddly enough, the author of this sentence is an individual identified merely as “Admiral Ghent” in a military role-playing game. The quality that Admiral Ghent most admires is the ability to pinpoint the gist of a situation in a flash — the ability to sort the wheat from the chaff, the ability to get quickly at what matters and to ignore the rest. Well, this is what we would take as our definition of intelligence.